The narrator, Lewis, gets off the train at Worchester to visit his friend, Dr. Elwin Ransom. As he walks toward Ransom’s cottage, he recounts the stories of Ransom’s visit to Mars and the beings he met there. He focuses on the eldila, a sort of “thinking mineral” rather than a “planetary organism,” and their leader and the ruler of Mars, the Oyarsa of Malacandra. The eldila call our Solar System the Field of Arbol and give space, where they truly reside, the name of “Deep Heaven.”

Lewis reflects on the changes that Ransom has gone through since his visit to Mars and begins to worry that there is something amiss. Lewis then realizes that he left his belongings on the train and, along with this, the lights in the area are all out, possibly due to the blackouts instituted during World War II. Lewis begins to think about another race of eldila called the Tellurian eldils, a hostile race that has cut off communication between Earth and the other planets. He then wonders if Ransom is perhaps being duped by the eldila, or in league with them for some evil purpose. He concludes that this notion wouldn’t make sense, given Ransom’s character.